


like in the movies

by witchy_country616



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Canon up to that, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Series Finale Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8859388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchy_country616/pseuds/witchy_country616
Summary: Ten movies Richie showed Santanico during their time together – and one movie she showed him after. Domestic fluff and some drama thrown in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, as everyone knows, I have a thing for Richie, Santanico and movies. This has been seating on my computer for a while, and I finally tweaked some things and decided to post it. Hopefully y'all will enjoy it and take this as an apology for not updating we're both so sorry in ages.  
> Last but not least, thanks so much to [iaintnodamselindistress](http://iaintnodamselindistress.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who helped me sort the movies out even though she knows almost nothing about FDTD and is the Richard to my Santanico when it comes to cinema.

“The Bonnie to my Clyde.” He says as a thank you after Santanico chops off the head of this _culebra_ guy who had gotten him into a hold, saving his life, on the very first night they went out together looking for information on Malvado’s operation.

Instead of laughing it off or being exasperated with him (like she usually is), her reaction is simply one of confusion. “¿ _Quien?_ Who the hell is _Bonnie_?”

His expression mirrors hers of confusion for a moment – because how can someone _not_ know who Bonnie and Clyde are – but it’s clear she is not faking it and he mentally kicks himself for not noticing it sooner. Santanico hides it well, with her blasé attitude towards everything, but the truth is she has been locked up for the last 500 years, with little to no contact with the outside world. And he is willing to bet neither Carlos or Malvado had between their main priorities introducing her to America’s most infamous criminal duos or, better yet, to the fine art of cinema. It’s a fact that he decides to rectify as soon as possible. And that’s how it starts.

**Bonnie and Clyde (1967)**

It takes him a couple of days, but he finally manages to get his hands on the dvd copy of _Bonnie and Clyde_ , along with a few others movies that Santanico _must_ see.

“What are we doing?” She asks once she sees him move the couch towards the front of their tv set, a small table in front of it, already with a wine bottle and two glasses on top of it.

“C’mon. I thought we could take a break from all the planning.”

“But you never want to take breaks.” She answers, sitting down on the couch and pouring some wine on her glass. Richie rolls his eyes because this is just like her: she complains when he doesn’t do what she wants, but is extremely suspicious when he does.

“Well, I want to take one now. And this is important.” He says, sitting besides her and pressing play on the remote control.

Santanico doesn’t answer, quietly sipping her wine until she sees the title roll on the screen.

“I would’ve figured out who they were eventually, you know.”

“Now you don’t have to. Besides, this is classic. Every one needs to watch it at least once in their lives.”

She doesn’t complain about the movie again, but she keeps changing positions on the couch, seemingly not be able to get comfortable and ultimately distracting him from the movie until he has to pause it.

“Something wrong?” Faster than he can blink, she jumps on top of him, so now he’s half lying down on the couch and she is on top, her legs intertwined with his and her head on his chest.

“This is better. Now you can continue it.” She says, as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

“Okay…” He thinks it’s better to not comment on how much she looks like a snake that just found herself a warm nest. The position is actually more confortable than he expected as well, and they watch the rest of the movie without incidents.

It doesn’t mean Santanico doesn’t have her own opinions about it, however, classic or not.

“I didn’t like it, Richard. They die”, she says, still on top of him, her face turned away from his in the direction of the screen.

“Hey.” He gently grabs her arm, forcing her to look at him. “We won’t die.” 

**Dracula (1931)**

Two days later, Santanico is lazily lying in bed when Richard pops down next to her and shakes her awake.

“It’s 8 in the morning, we can’t even go outside. I want to go back to sleep, what do you want?” She says, after looking at the bedside clock and giving him her best-annoyed bitch look, the one that says, “ _start talking or I’ll eat you_ ”. If it were up to her, they would only wake up in the afternoon.

“It’s early, fair, but it doesn’t mean we have to waste the day sleeping. Wake up, we have to continue your cinema education.” He says, way more cheerful than anyone has the right to be at that time of the day.

“I didn’t realize I had enrolled in any classes, professor.” She retorts quickly, but moves into a sitting position on the bed.

Santanico calling him _professor_ while wearing close to nothing in bed does _things_ to Richie, but he forces himself to focus and keep his mind on the mission. The cinematic mission, that is.

“I promise you will like this one. The guy is just like us.” And that peaks her interest, enough that he doesn’t even have to plead with her to watch it.

“ _Blood is life._ You’re right, I like him.” She tells him as soon as Dracula goes on his first monologue. And while Bonnie and Clyde got her restless, she stays quiet enough through the whole Dracula movie that later he has to check if she didn’t go back to sleep, but, no, she is still awake.

Afterwards she is all “See, Richard, why can’t we be more like him?” and sadly, it won’t be the last time she accuses _Belushi_ of being a better _culebra_ than him.

**An Andalusian Dog (Un Chien Andalou, 1929)**  

“Richard…what the hell was this?” Santanico asks as soon as the movie ends, a frown on her face. She might be knew to the whole moving pictures thing, but she knows when something doesn’t make sense, and this is the most utter nonsense thing she has ever watched in her whole life.

“This is one of the greatest classics of cinema, certainly the best silent movie ever, a profound look into the nature of men and society.”

“It’s crap.” She says petulantly to his face and he sighs. “What’s with the ants in the hands? What about the butterfly that turns into a dog? And they are dead, right? Were they dead the whole time?”

“That’s one of the questions, were they? Does it matter? Isn’t society dead? Aren’t we all rotten inside? That’s why the ants keep showing up in his hands, the connection to the earth that we can never leave and will eventually go back to…It’s all connected, that’s why is so profound.” He answers her, louder and more passionate at each phrase.

Santanico sighs, not impressed at all. “To me it sounds more like twenty minutes of my life I’m never getting back.”

He pouts like a child at her comment. “Buñel was Mexican, you know. You should be nicer to him!”

“That’s the best you can do? And he was naturalized. I checked.” She answers, sprinting out of room, satisfied at having the last word for once.

**The Trouble with Harry (1955)**

“This better be worth it.” She says as soon as he shows up with another movie. Though the first two were okay (maybe the _Belushi_ movie was more than okay, but she is not telling Richard that, _ever_ ) she still gets frustrated every time she thinks about the last one. What a waste of time.

“Trust me. You can’t go wrong with Hitchcock.” He says, as if the very idea offended him. “Now, everyone would probably start with _Psycho_ , _Rear Widow_ or even _The Birds_ , but it’s in his less flash-y movies that you can see how a true master works. This is one of his hidden gems.”

“I’ve heard that before…”

It takes her twenty minutes. A suspense in a small town is not what she was expecting, and yet it gets her engaged, laughing and feeling scared at times as all the characters go through thinking they are responsible for killing Harry and work together to dispose of his body. In the end she has to concede that some times Richard is right.

“Maybe we can watch another one of his some time.” She says once the movie is over and tries not to let Richard’s smile get to her.

**1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)**

She is always lecturing him about Mexican history, and he thought it would be fun to see her tear down Ridley Scott in one of his most horrible excursions through historical events. That’s it. It has no _real_ cinematic purpose.

But she turns off the tv shortly after the movie starts, saying “Can’t we just go out and eat or something? I can’t stand being locked up here anymore” without even looking him in the eye, and he learns his lesson. No movies related to Mexican history whatsoever (which is why he doesn’t show her that 90’s B-movie where some mediocre writer used her name for Salma Hayek’s character, uncle Eddie).

Hours later, they’re back in bed and he is almost asleep when she says, “That’s how I met Carlos.”

“Huh?” Her back is turned to him and he almost thinks he imagined her saying anything.

“He was one of those guys that came here, a _conquistador_.” She doesn’t elaborate on it, though, and he doesn’t know how to answer her finally trusting him with something about her past.

“That’s why he said you two had been together for 500 years.” He finally says, just because the silence was getting to be too much.

“We were never together, Richard. You can’t be together with your guard dog.” Her answer is firm and bitter. “We were just…inhabiting the same space, I guess. Doing what we had to do.”

“And we? Are we just doing what we have to do?” He didn’t mean to ask, but it comes out anyway. She doesn’t answer him and he tries to not let it bother him.

**Bringing up Baby (1939)**

He figures something light after the last fiasco and goes for his favorite Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy. Thankfully, it works because it’s the first time he hears Santanico laugh. Like, really laugh, because she genuinely finds something funny, and not because she’s making fun of someone. It’s refreshing and a sound he wants to hear again.

His happiness turns to blind panic momentarily when she asks him if they can also get a leopard for a pet like in the movie, but she can’t hide her mischievous smile at his horrified face and, guess what, Santanico has a sense of humor too.

“I do miss my snakes though…” She says and Richie decides it’s better to veto movies with animals from the now on. Not that he thinks she is serious, but just to be safe.

**The good, the bad and the ugly (1966)**

“Oh, are we watching one of those fettuccine movies?” Santanico asks; patting herself on the back for remembering there are a whole genre of western movies named after pasta.

“Spaghetti movies.”

She shrugs her shoulders, unimpressed. “Whatever. Fettucine is better, anyway. And I still don’t understand the name when there is no pasta involved.”

“And I told you. They were all shoot in Italy.” Richie retorts with that particular sigh he makes whenever she gets something related to his precious cinema wrong. She will never admit she finds that funny (and hot, maybe).

“But they are still about America.” She answers him. “Makes no sense.”

“Duly noted. Are we going to watch it or do you have more observations about the genre you would like to make?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

**The Dreamers (2003)**

“Oh, so we’re finally watching a Bellucci movie!” She screams excitedly when Richie announces they will be watching _The Dreamers_ that day after all the propaganda he has made about her and how beautiful she was.

“It’s a Bertolucci movie, the director. Bellucci is the actress. What’s up with you and B names?”

Santanico shrugs her shoulders. “Not my fault, they all sound the same. Plus I can never keep track of all your cinematic speeches, you know that.”

“I am glad you are being honest…” He says, pouting theatrically at her.

“What? You know it is true.” She answers nonchalantly. And before Richie can continue their banter, her attention is glued again on the screen as Eva Green appears for the first time.

“Oh, who is she? She is hot.”

“That’s Eva Green.” He answers, pulling her close and mockingly questioning her, “Should I be worried?”

“Only if she is hotter than Bellucci.” Santanico throws back at him, eyebrows raised, eyes taunting him.

“Hmm. Bellucci was probably hotter on her days.”

“We should be watching her movie then.” She says and Richie rolls his eyes. He can’t win with her.

**The Godfather (1972)**

“Richard… We’re not the mafia and we’re not the cartel. How many times do I have to say that?” she says, exasperated with his apparent inability to grasp the fact that _culebras_ are not the equivalent of a Mexican supernatural criminal organization (or maybe they are, but there’s so much more to them than just that).

He rolls his eyes at her, familiar with that complain. “I know. And for the record, I resent the fact that you think I chose _The Godfather_ just because the mafia and the browns have something in common. This is probably the best movie of all time.”

“Really?” She asks surprised, because Richie doesn’t just throw that kind of compliment around.

“Really.”

“Fine.” She sits quietly on his side for about five minutes. Then her hand goes to his hair, softly running her fingers through his hair. It’s distracting, to say the least.

“No, don’t.” He protests, trying to stop her.

“You don’t like it?”

“I do.” He likes it way too much, he thinks. How will he handle two and half hours of movie with her teasing him like this?

“Then what’s the problem?” Her hand is on the basis of his skull now and her touch is relaxing and arousing at the same time.

“You should be watching the movie.” He tries to bring her attention back to the screen.

“I am, I can multi-task.” She says, moving closer and practically sitting on his lap. “You have a much better view of the screen from your seat. See, I am watching.”

“Santanico…you promised,” his voice strained while he tries to stop her other hand from moving underneath his shirt…unsuccessfully.

“I am not doing anything, I am watching.” She answers with her most innocent expression (she really needs to work on that if she wants to fool anyone). “He is talking, petting the cat…now more talking…”

“Stop it.” Her hands still immediately, her face registering her surprise that he actually told her to stop, but before she can voice her indignation his mouth is on top of hers, unexpectedly but welcoming. It was what she had been hoping for since they started watching it and she kisses him back eagerly, her tongue pleading passage into his mouth and searching for his.

“And the movie?” She asks once they separate.

“We can watch it later.”

 

**The Night (La Notte, 1961)**

She didn’t like _La dolce vita_ , so she has no great expectations for _La Notte_ , another Italian classic Richie insisted they watch (because he has a crush on Jeanne Moreau).

But the movie far exceeds her expectations. There is something in the despair and the incommunicability in Giovani and Lidia’s marriage that is strangely familiar to her relationship with Richard. No, his eyes never stray towards other women, infidelity is not an issue for either of them, but on some days she still feels like there’s an ocean between them, a distance she will never be able to overcome.

“It’s sad.” She says after its over, unable to say anything else when he asks her whether she liked it.

His brows frown as if that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. “Why?”

“He was always looking for something to satisfy him, so he was negligent to the one think that truly matter. I mean, if you actually believe he loved her.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t know…”

 

\+ **A separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin, 2011)**

_some time in the future_

There’s a hesitant knock and Richie drags himself out of the bed to open the room’s door.

“Hey.” He doesn’t know whom he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t Sant… _Kisa_. “I thought you had left already.”

“No, not yet. Can I come in?” She asks, moving past him without waiting for his response. The motel room is very basic, with a couch and a small table on the front and a twin bed on the left occupying most of the space. It strangely resembles the one where he stayed with his brother on the way to Mexico, where she made him kill that bank teller. She shakes her head, willing the memories away and sits on the couch before he can turn her away.

Without knowing what to say now that she is finally here, she starts with the basics, “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think the poison is finally out of my system and the _culebra_ healing is kicking in.” He answers, sitting next to her.

“You didn’t have to do that, Richard. That punishment was given by Amaru to me and it wasn’t your place to take it on my name.” It’s the first thing she says, to get it out of the way before she loses her courage. The final battle with Amaru took them all to hell and back, literally. And after everything, it’s not easy admitting to have needed help. It’s even harder to thank someone for saving her life. Especially when she had been so sure that, when the time came, he would save his own skin instead.

He shrugs. “It’s over now. Besides, if you do believe in the prophecy and everything, it had to happen that way, otherwise we would all still be trapped down there in hell.”

“Maybe… Still, thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“I had to, and you know it.” He states in a voice that gives no room for arguments and she decides to change the subject.

“Well, I brought you something, as a thank you gift.” She declares, opening up her purse and giving him a dvd.

His eyebrows frown as he reads the title. _A Separation_. “Iranian, huh?”

“I have been expanding my cinematic tastes.” She answers him proudly with a smile. “Have you seen it?”

“Not yet, I think it got out right around the time Seth got arrested. I wasn’t on my best back then, as you know. Do you mind if I put it on?”

“I don’t think they have a player here, Richard.”

“No, but Seth left his laptop here, so…” He pauses, understanding finally clear on his face. “I’m sorry, you probably have somewhere to go. Thanks for the movie.” She can hear the sadness and disappointment in his voice, but he still smiles at her, aware that he doesn’t have the right to ask for anything more than she is willing to give and it touches her more than she wants to admit. She came here intending to give him the movie and go, but why does he still have such a strong hold on her heart that it hurts her so much to say no?

“Well, I don’t have to leave now exactly. I have time to watch a movie and keep an eye on you until Seth comes back.” Santanico tries to answer casually, pretending it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

“I will set it up.” Richie answers quickly, before she can change her mind.

And a few minutes later, they are both lying in the bed (the couch was too uncomfortable), shoulders touching, watching the movie on the small laptop screen in front of them. It’s still not the most comfortable position, but both of them insist in ignoring any awkwardness and pretend it’s the most common activity to be doing with your ex…ex-something.

“Why did you choose this one?” He can’t help but ask, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Santanico shrugs her shoulders, enigmatic as ever. “Does it always have to be a reason? Maybe I just liked it and wanted to share it with you?” The truth is she hadn’t thought much about the subtext of the movie in relation to their personal relationship.

From the beginning, she had been fascinated by the couple on screen that still had so much love for each other but decided to divorce. And how this common decision brought so many tragedies to their lives throughout the movie had shown her your choices don’t ever affect just you. After watching it, all she had wanted to do was to show it to Richie. But, of course, his’ analytical mind would see it as a personal jab to their relationship.

“I suppose that’s one reason…” He says, though he doesn’t seem too convinced. There was always a reason to the movies _he_ showed her.

“Did you like it?” She interrupts him, eager to know.

“It was not what I was expecting.”

“But it was still good?” She prompted.

“It was better.” He admitted. His critic’ eye had fallen in love with the cinematography and the turns of the story while his heart had been moved by the love the main character had for his own father and daughter. Instead of trying to figure out _why that movie_ , he should be happy Kisa had shown it to him in the first place. Go figure. The first cinematic masterpiece she introduced him to. He hoped it wasn’t the last one.

“Maybe what is different from what we expect can be good too…” She whispers, grabbing his hand and interlacing their fingers.

“Do you believe in that?” He asks her softly.

“I do.”

 

The end.

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolute fluff and I regret nothing. The best thing though is that since Richie DID show Santanico movies on the series, you can consider it all except the last one as canon ;)  
> Anyway, thanks for reading and please live kudos or comments if you liked it!


End file.
